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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191603">hold you in my lungs like smoke</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hella_Queer/pseuds/Hella_Queer'>Hella_Queer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Allusions to parental abuse and sexual assault, Freeform, Gen, Platonic Bevchie, Protective Richie, Unconditional Love, background reddie, everyone loves Bev this is fact</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:15:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191603</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hella_Queer/pseuds/Hella_Queer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe, simply, he loved Bev like a person.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>richie tozier &amp; beverly marsh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>ohhh that's my shit right there</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hold you in my lungs like smoke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this until 3am last night because the Bevchie friendship is very important to me and I was feeling Soft. Shoutout to Andy who appreciates all my random ideas and screenshots &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Almost everything about Bev was soft. </p><p>Her hands were delicate in the way old fashioned guys liked, fingers thin and nimble, nails painted in pretty pinks or oranges, whatever she could lift from the corner store when she was bored. The clubhouse had a basket full of nail supplies, and Ben built a little bench in the corner where she could paint and file and be the girly girl no one else let her be. Underneath the dirt, surrounded by loud, rowdy, sweaty boys who didn’t know how to fight against the machine just yet, she was a princess. </p><p>Richie liked Bev, at first. Then he started to love her. It wasn’t like a sister, because siblings were complicated. Siblings meant sharing and arguing and guilt that ate away at you during the night. He loved her more than a friend though, he knew that much. It wasn’t like Bill, who he would follow anywhere. It wasn’t like Mike, who made him feel warm and heard, and it wasn’t like Ben who he wanted to hold and stare at like one might a hamster. It wasn’t even like Stan, who he sometimes thought he could be in love with if he didn’t already know what that felt like. </p><p>Maybe, simply, he loved Bev like a person. </p><p>He tells her this one day, sitting underneath a tree with a blanket wrapped around their shoulders. They pass the last cigarette in the pack back and forth, staring out into the field as Bill attempts to teach the others how to cartwheel. Richie hasn’t showered in two days, and the wind blows the scent of strawberries toward his nose. It makes his stomach turn. He knows Bev hates it, that she would rather use Eddie’s dandruff shampoo and Bill’s sharp deodorant and Mike’s cologne that his uncle keeps giving him even though Mike always gets quiet and withdrawn whenever anyone outside of the Losers brings it up. </p><p>“I think I love you, Mistress Marsh,” he says in a lilting British accent. “Your copper hair and fiery spirit gets my feathers all in a ruffle.”</p><p>She laughs, a sleepy sound that she punctuates by squishing her cheek against his shoulder. “Dare I say, Master Tozier, my heart, it beats for you as well. Quite unfortunate, that.”</p><p>“Quite unfortunate indeed.” Richie stubs out the cigarette in the ground between his feet. Then he wraps both arms around Bev and buries his face in her hair, sucking in the sickly sweet scent of chemical fruit, hoping that if he tries hard enough he can remove it from her. One less burden to carry on her soft shoulders.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>+++++++</p>
</div>Bev’s favorite shirt of Richie’s to wear is the bright blue button up with the magenta palm trees. He lifted it from a thrift store on the very rare trip his family took outside of Derry. She often paired it with a pair of yellow boxers that Richie didn’t remember buying but somehow always showed up when Bev slept over. Her pajamas at home had clouds and bears on them, and he’s never wanted to torch something so bad.<p>“Come dance with me, jerkface,” Bev calls, arms out towards where he’s sprawled across his bed, nose buried in a comic. The music is a little loud but his folks aren’t home and it’s not that late. There’s a bruise on her knee that matches Bill’s, because sharing a bike sounds all well and good in theory, until you hit a pothole and go flying off across the asphalt. </p><p>Richie rolls off his bed with a huff, puffing out his cheeks so she can push her fingers into his skin. He lets her guide him, hands clasped together as they spin and sway and step over the clothes he hasn’t picked up yet. With his socks on she can glide across the hardwood like she’s skating, and Richie wonders if he could convince the others to hit the rink soon. </p><p>“Are you hungry?”</p><p>“We had lunch with the guys a couple hours ago, Rich.”</p><p>He shrugs, turns the music up a little louder then heads downstairs to the kitchen. He hears her on the stairs not long after, and when she comes into view she’s singing into a hairbrush, head bobbing back and forth, socked feet kicking up into the air. Richie, not to be outdone, grabs the biggest spoon he can and turns it into a duet, letting his voice crack because it makes her laugh and that’s a sound he never wants to forget. </p><p>It’s funny, he thinks, when they’ve got their arms around each other and they’re swaying in the kitchen, a bowl of cookie dough on the counter and a frozen pizza burning in the shitty oven that only his dad could command. It’s funny how he can stare into her eyes and belt out love songs, how he can spin her round and watch her hair flutter and wonder if his is curlier. How he’s seen her change clothes more than once, and all he can think about is how he doesn’t want anyone else looking at her unless she lets them. </p><p>“I love you,” he mumbles into hair that smells like his shampoo. “Even if you can’t carry a tune.”</p><p>She hums into his shoulders, hugging him tighter. “And I love you even though you dance like an electrocuted chicken.” </p><p>Richie digs his fingers into her sides just to hear her laugh again, and in the morning his shirt is gone and he doesn’t expect to see it without Bev being attached.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>+++++++</p>
</div>Richie was a touchy feely kind of guy, because he often said what he didn’t mean and never knew how to be Sincere and Considerate because that kind of vulnerability gave him hives. But touching? That was easy.<p>When Georgie went missing he glued himself to Bill’s side, grabbed him away from that ledge he was inching towards as the days turned to weeks. And when they found him, he took up residence at the Denbrough house so long his father would ask if he should start forwarding his mail. </p><p>Stan’s hair was perfect for sinking his fingers into, and he was tall, with boney shoulders and hips that Richie liked to poke whenever he got too sad. With Mike he would hover close, body heat building between them, reading over his shoulder or using his arm as a pillow in the library. Ben was the nicest person to hug because he put his entire body into it, and he was stronger than anyone gave him credit for. </p><p>Eddie. Thinking about Eddie made him feel funny so he tried not to think about his face or his hair or his arm that was now double jointed or his legs in his shorts that he really should’ve thrown out when they were tiny and twelve and his Eyes and his nose and his pouting mouth. </p><p>Bev was usually the one who sought out his touch the most, though. She liked braiding his hair and pinching his nose and smoothing out his eyebrows. She would jump on his back and demand to be carried down the road, arms around his shoulders in a loose hold because she trusted him not to let her fall before she was ready. She stuck her cold toes under his thigh during movie nights, and would run up to him just to hold his hand. </p><p>Richie liked that the best, the hand holding. They would race down the street, elbows locked as they fought to stay connected, sweaty palms and calloused fingers laced together like a favored pair of sneakers. When he could stop himself from biting his nails he’d let Bev make them pretty, always requesting the middle finger be a different color than all the others. </p><p>“It’s an important finger, Bee! Gotta make sure it stands out.”</p><p>The Losers were used to it of course, but Derry looked at them through a magnifying glass, burning them like helpless ants under its harsh gaze. Mr. Marsh didn’t take too kindly to it, the hand holding, and it made Richie sick to let go once they would reach her street. He didn’t want Bowers and his gang to catch her alone again, like when they were kids. Because they weren’t exactly kids anymore, not really, and he didn’t like to think about all the awful things not kids did to people.</p><p>He was afraid once, that she would be afraid of touching him. Of touching any of them. Because that kind of icky feeling doesn’t always know that you’re safe, that the boy pulling your ear isn’t the same one that held a knife to your face. It made him angry, stomach rolling any time he caught sight of those bastards, of Bowers and Alvin Marsh and anyone else who tried to touch their Bev, with their hateful hands or their hateful words. </p><p>But if she felt that way around him he would never know, because she would sooner throw herself into his arms, shirtless and shrieking with laughter as they topped sideways into the quarry, than shy away from him. They trace messages across the wet skin of their backs and try to guess the letters. Bev had it pretty easy, since Richie tends to say the same thing these days.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>+++++++</p>
</div>They’ve talked about it before, running away. After Georgie was safe, after Bill became a person again, after they met Mike and Ben, after Bowers. It was a pipe dream, a mental escape they planned with maps and promises of tourist attractions and shitty motels. Mike had a car now too, and the seven of them could trade off who rode with who, and Richie would hug his parents goodbye and only feel a little guilty about never looking back.<p>That was before Sonia Kaspbrak ripped Eddie out of their lives. </p><p>He wishes he meant that metaphorically. </p><p>It was an awful summer day, cold and rainy and unforgiving. Eddie screamed at his mother who screamed at Richie who clutched at Eddie with angry tears stinging his eyes. She was <i>taking him</i> away and that wasn’t allowed it just wasn’t! She threatened to call the cops, because he was old enough now to be taken to jail. He spit on her windshield, feral like a rabid animal. And then he kissed Eddie full on the mouth, and then he vomited in the road once the car disappeared out of view. His arms were covered in long red scratches, some of them bleeding from where Eddie’s nails dug in hard enough to break skin. He didn’t let anyone clean them. </p><p>Bev was the only one allowed to see him in those following weeks. She made him eat, and held his hair back when he couldn’t keep it down. She pushed him to shower, and let him curl up in bed in his towel and put his clothes in the hamper if they smelled older than they looked. She wrapped her arms around him and held him when he cried, rubbed his back and didn’t flinch when he screamed out his pain. </p><p>Bill was angry with him, but only because he knew pity would set Richie even more on edge. They fought a lot, snapping and wrestling and punching until Ben or Mike broke it up. If it got really bad Stan would put himself in the line of fire, and Richie would deflate and sit on the ground and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t hurt stan anymore than he could hurt Bev, not because they were lesser but because they didn’t deserve it. Bill was tough, but when he woke up from his nightmares Georgie was just a door away, safe and sound and older to boot. Stan went home to stiffness and structure that kept him quiet and anxious, and he would lose his arms before he ever hurt Beverly. That was out of the question. </p><p>But <i>god</i> he wanted to die. Just a little, just enough for the pain to stop. He felt insane, hair too long and too tangled and greasy. He hates all of his bright clothes and his stupid comic books that ate up the money he could’ve used for more important things. Nothing mattered now, because his reason for waiting, for staying, was gone. </p><p>They used to talk about it, running away. </p><p>Bev moved in with him officially in the winter, tears in her eyes and a bruise on her face. His parents, the one good thing left in this shithole, had never looked at her sideways, and for that Richie was grateful. He was certain she was the one thing keeping him alive when everything inside of him was screaming to…</p><p>“They didn’t go out of state,” Bev whispers. They’re in bed, facing each other, and her breath smells like frosting. The others are piled up on his floor, trying hard to conjure the missing puzzle piece to what was meant to be the best birthday party imaginable. Now it’s past midnight, and February fourteenth has never felt more bleak. </p><p>Richie doesn’t speak because if he opens his mouth he’ll throw up again. So he shuffled closer and wraps his arms around her and breathes slow and careful. She pets his wild hair that he still refuses to cut, because Eddie takes him to the barber and that’s just the way things go. </p><p>“It’s still far, but they drove, remember?” On the floor Bill whines, and Mike rolls towards him, arm flopping over his chest. “I remember the license plate. You’ve got one of his extra inhalers, yeah? His prescription information?” </p><p>Richie nods even if he doesn’t have the brainpower to understand what she’s talking about. Bev sits up, leans over him so she can cup his face in her soft hands, nails painted red and black. Without his glasses she’s a blurry mass made up of a lot of things that he cherishes, and he wishes he could find his words again. He poured every single <i>I love you</i> into Eddie’s kiss, so even when he feels it the words aren’t there. </p><p>But Bev, she gets him. She pushes his hair away from his forehead and bends down, pressing her lips right between his eyes. </p><p>“So let’s go get him.” </p><p>They used to talk about it, running away. And now, curled up in the back of his car while Ben snores in the front seat and Bev keeps them in a straight line, Mike, Stan and Bill just a few feet in front of them, he can feel his words returning. He can’t bring himself to say them right now, throat raw from crying, but he catches her eyes in the mirror, and it’s like he never needed words to begin with.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>+++++++</p>
</div>“If I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”<p>The sun is just beginning to set now, turning the dingy motel parking lot into a temporary oasis. The snow struggles to linger in the growing warmth, and Richie’s ass is numb from where it rests on the hood of his car. The others are crammed together in the two bedroom up the stairs, lights still on as they polish off the pizza and beer they half bought half stole a few blocks away. </p><p>Bev, wrapped up in Bill’s coat and Mike’s scarf and Stan’s boots and Ben’s snow pants, sits beside him. Her wild hair peeks out from under Richie’s dark blue fuzzy hat, and her cheeks are bright red like little cherries. She passes him the lit cigarette held casually between her pale fingers, and he wants to give her his other glove but he doesn’t. </p><p>“Are you asking me?” She smiles a little, nose scrunched up like a rabbit. “I’m honored, Trashmouth, truly.”</p><p>Richie headbutts her shoulder with the force of an autumn leaf falling from a tree, and just doesn’t sit back up again. He thinks about Eddie, just a few feet away, playing cards and wearing Richie’s hoodie. He thinks about the solid two weeks of driving they have under their belts, the look on Sonia Kaspbrak’s face when Bev stepped between Richie’s frozen form and her awful, terrible words. He wraps his arms around her and sighs, tired all over again. </p><p>“I wanna ask Eddie,” he says into the wind. “I know it’s too soon and we’re one flat tire away from being homeless for real. But if I lose him again I don’t think I’ll survive it, Bee. I’m not strong enough.”</p><p>Bev rocks him gently, one hand on his back, and he thinks he wants to cry, just a little. He’s used to living life one day at a time but now he’s constantly checking for the cops, for the monsters, the people who will split them apart or drag them back or bury them alive. It’s hardest on Bill, who left behind someone he cares about, which makes Richie taste guilt on the back of his tongue like stomach acid. He has to be the leader now, has to give them a direction so it doesn’t feel like they’re running around in circles. </p><p>They have to be running towards something now, instead of away. At least that’s what Bev says. She says a lot on his behalf, fills in the gaps so they have a bridge to walk on. He doesn’t deserve it, but he doesn’t say so, because he knows she’d have a lot to say about it. </p><p>“I think I would say yes. If you asked me.”</p><p>“Yeah?” </p><p>Bev tugs gently at his recently chopped hair; an uneven mess made by safety scissors because Eddie refused to look at him otherwise. “We’d argue, because I’m stubborn and you’re ridiculous. And we’d get kicked out of places because you’re rude and I’m not much better. And you’re clumsy and I leave my things everywhere, and I hate chocolate ice cream and you’re a messy eater.”</p><p>“And I feel safe whenever we’re together. And if I die it’s because I was protecting you. and if you die it’s because you were saving me.” </p><p>Richie has slipped lower, hiding in her lap because he’s gone boneless, chest heavy and light at the same time. His shoulders shake a little and he thinks he’s crying, but then he laughs, and Bev keeps him from slipping off and falling to the cold ground. His fingers have gone numb, so it takes him a while to curl them into Bill’s coat. When he does he forces himself to sit up, and touches his dry lips to Bev’s forehead. He lingers there, wanting this moment suspended in time forever. </p><p>“Do you love me?”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>She laughs, gentle and warm. He never wants to be without it. </p><p>“I do, too.” </p><p>Almost everything about Bev was soft. Everything except her heart, which was strong enough to hold whatever Richie couldn’t carry on his own. And for that, he loved her all the more.</p>
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